After My Mate Left Me for Dead, I Became Lycan Royalty

The Lycan King's counsel chamber was all stone and silence. High arched windows let in cold morning light that turned the grey walls silver. I sat in a chair that was too big for me, my broken leg propped on a cushioned stool, and told them everything.

I didn't cry. I didn't shake. I just spoke.

I described the night I returned from Bloodridge. How I'd crossed into their territory alone because Ironveil needed the alliance and no one else would go. How the ambush came at the border crossing—rogues paid off, wolfsbane in the water I drank from the stream. I'd completed the negotiation anyway. Signed the treaty with my hand trembling from the poison. Made it back to Ironveil barely conscious.

I described waking in the pack house healer's ward to find Alistair standing over me with Clover beside him. How he'd held up my torn shirt and said he could smell another Alpha on me. How I'd tried to explain—tried to tell him about the ambush, the poisoning—and he'd used his Alpha tone to seal my mouth shut mid-sentence.

The physical sensation was specific. My jaw had locked. My tongue pressed flat against the roof of my mouth. I couldn't make a sound. Couldn't even whimper. Just knelt there on the stone floor of the pack hall while he spoke over me, telling the assembled pack that their Luna had whored herself out for a treaty.

I recited it all in the same flat tone. The demotion to Omega. The grey shift I was commanded to wear. The three years of scrubbing floors and eating last and sleeping in the servant's quarters while Clover sat in my chair at the high table. The Alpha-tone commands that came whenever I tried to speak—not just to him, but to anyone. He'd bound my voice through the mate bond itself.

The Lycan King sat at the head of the table. He didn't interrupt. Didn't ask questions. Just listened with his hands folded on the dark wood, his expression carefully neutral. But I saw his knuckles go white when I described the first time Alistair had used the bond to force me to my knees in front of the pack.

When I finished, the room was quiet for a long moment.

Then the King spoke. His voice was steady. Controlled. "I want the healer's reports from the night you returned from Bloodridge."

One of the counsel members—a woman with sharp eyes and silver hair—nodded. "We'll dispatch investigators immediately, Your Majesty."

"And the pack healer's name?"

"Senna Mercer," I said. My voice didn't waver. "She treated me that night. She would have documented the wolfsbane poisoning. The toxicology results."

The King's jaw tightened. "Find her. Find the reports. I want everything."

The counsel bowed and left. I stayed in my chair, staring at the table. My leg throbbed. The dead mark on my neck felt cold.

The King stood and crossed to the window. He was quiet for a moment, looking out at the courtyard below. Then he said, without turning, "You don't have to do this alone."

I looked at him. At the rigid line of his shoulders. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just telling you what happened."

"You're building a case," he said. He turned to face me. "Whether you realize it or not."

I didn't answer. Because he was right.

I watched the investigators leave from my chamber window two hours later. Three Lycan warriors in dark cloaks, moving fast toward the forest border. They'd be at Ironveil by nightfall.

I stood at the window long after they'd disappeared into the trees. My wolf stirred inside me. Just once. A low pulse of heat that spread through my chest and faded.

She'd been silent since the rejection. Not gone, but distant. Unreachable. This was the first time she'd moved on her own.

I pressed my hand against the glass. It was cool under my palm.

The next morning, I woke to a scent I didn't recognize.

It came through the open window with the dawn air. Warm. Golden. Sunlit pine and honey. Nothing sharp. Nothing heavy. Just warmth and light and something that made my wolf lift her head without me asking her to.

I sat up slowly. My leg ached, but the sharp pain was gone. I could put weight on it now if I was careful. I crossed to the window and looked down at the courtyard.

He was there.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair that caught the early light. He moved across the flagstones with an easy confidence that wasn't arrogance—just certainty. Lycan Prince Emery Ashford. I'd seen him once before, briefly, when I first woke in the stronghold. He'd stood at the back of the room while the healers worked. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't approached.

Now he paused at the center of the courtyard and looked up.

Our eyes met.

He didn't smile. Didn't wave. Just held my gaze for a long, steady moment. Then he nodded once and continued toward the training grounds.

I stood at the window and watched him go. The scent lingered. Sunlit pine and honey. My wolf stirred again. Warmer this time. Interested.

I pressed my hand against my chest. Against the hollow where the mate bond used to be.

The hollow was still there. Cold and empty. But the scent was warm.

I stayed at the window until the courtyard was empty again. Until the scent faded into the morning air. Then I turned away and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands.

I didn't know what it meant. The scent. The way my wolf had responded.

But I filed it away. Noted it. Let it sit.

I wasn't ready to reach for anything yet.

I wasn't sure I ever would be.